Roman Polanski deserves to be punished (column)

Roman Polanski's 40-year-old sexual assault case may come to an end soon.
His victim, York native Samantha Geimer, appeared in court to tell a judge to drop the case.
Wochit

FILE - This Feb. 25, 2015 file photo shows filmmaker Roman Polanski during a break in a hearing concerning a U.S. request for his extradition over 1977 charges of sex with a minor, in Krakow, Poland. Polanski’s latest film is heading to the Cannes Film Festival. Polanksi’s “Based on a True Story” will play out of competition.(Photo: Alik Keplicz, AP)

This story was originally published Oct. 4, 2009. On June 9, 2017, Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, asked a judge to end the case against the film director.

In Roman Polanski’s 1968 film, “Rosemary’s Baby,” the character played by Mia Farrow is drugged and raped by Satan himself.

It is worth noting that Farrow, at the time, was a wan young woman, appearing almost pre-adolescent. You could almost say that she looked like a 13-year-old girl.

On March 10, 1977, Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.

Art imitating life?

It would be easy to conclude that Polanski made the film to satisfy his fetish for drugging and raping pre-adolescent girls. Of course, that would discount the man’s art. For instance, did his cameo in “Chinatown” satisfy some deep desire to slice open Jack Nicholson’s nose?

Yet, it is there, on the screen.

Polanski skipped out before be could be sentenced for drugging and raping the former Samantha Gailey, daughter of prominent York attorney Jack Gailey, exiling himself to Europe where he hoped to live his life, destitute and wracked with guilt and regret.

No, he didn’t. I made up that last part.

He’s continued to make movies. He’s continued to make tons of cash from his art. He’s continued to bed attractive young women.

Yet, after his arrest last week in Switzerland, there are people who say he has suffered enough, that all should be forgiven and that he should not have to face the consequences for his actions 32 years ago, that he should be spared jail because, my lord, the poor man has had to live in France and Switzerland for the past three decades, that he is, in fact, the victim.

It’s absurd.

Let’s review what happened here. On that March day, Gailey’s mother — an actress named Susan Gailey — took the girl to meet Polanski at Jack Nicholson’s Mulholland Drive home, ostensibly for a photo shoot for a French magazine. Gailey wanted to be an actress, like her mother, and believed this could be her big break.

Of course, any parent who would take his or her 13-year-old daughter and leave her in the company of a strange 43-year-old man to have photos taken in hope of the girl being launched into stardom could be thought to be, at best, irresponsible and, at worse, nuts.

Polanski gave the girl champagne and, as the photo shoot went on, a woman who was at the house left and Polanski asked Gailey to take her shirt off. He then offered her a Quaalude, a powerful sedative that was a popular recreational drug among those who thought comas were recreational, and things got weird.

He told her to take her clothes off and get into the Jacuzzi with him. At one point, according to the girl’s grand jury testimony, posted on thesmokinggun.com, the girl told Polanski she had to go home.

Polanski told her to go into a bedroom and lie down. She said she was afraid and sat on a couch.

The prosecutor asked her, “What were you afraid of?”

“Him,” she replied.

The grand jury testimony contains a graphic description of what happened next. At one point, Polanski asked her if she was on the pill. She said she wasn’t.

“He goes, ‘Would you want me to go in through your back?’ And I went, ‘No.’”

Polanski did it anyway.

The girl said she didn’t really resist because she was afraid of him.

After it was over, Polanski told her, “Oh, don’t tell your mother about this. This is our secret.”

Sounds like rape to me.

Recently, Polanski’s former sister-in-law, sister of actress Sharon Tate, famously killed by Charlie Manson’s minions, was on the “Today” show, defending Polanski, and she said, “Well, there’s rape and then there’s rape.”

Yes, there is. And this is rape.

Giving a 13-year-old girl alcohol and a sedative and then having sex with her after she says no, that certainly sounds like rape to me.

Moving on, Polanski pleaded guilty to the charge. According to a transcript of his plea hearing, he knew what he was charged with and admitted that he was guilty as charged.

Before he could be sentenced, he skipped the country.

And then, last week, he was finally arrested in Switzerland.

Immediately, there was an outcry from some who believed he had suffered enough. They cite the fact that his mother was killed in Auschwitz and he had to escape the Nazis in Poland during the Holocaust. They cite the horrific murder of his wife at the hands of the Manson family.

They said he should be given a walk because he is a great artist.

Much of this was summed up by the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum. She wrote that she finds it “bizarre” that anyone still cares about this case. She wrote:

“There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom, has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers’ fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.”

And whether it’s “bizarre” that the authorities would continue to pursue the case, let’s keep in mind one simple fact: The man raped a child.

Another of Polanski’s apologists, a woman named Joan Z. Shore, writing on the Huffington Post, wrote that he was “demonized by the press.”

How awful. You know, you drug and rape one child . . .

Had he not directed “Rosemary’s Baby” or “Chinatown,” he wouldn’t have had the chance to flee.

Here in York County, a cursory search of court records shows the injustice. Last November, a 22-year-old Manchester man was sent to prison for two to four years for having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He said the act was consensual. A 53-year-old Maryland man who had sex with a 14-year-old girl got three to six years. Another man, from Hanover, got 10 to 20 years.

Excusing Polanski because he made a few good movies is reprehensible.

His defenders also point to the fact that his victim, Samantha Geimer, who now lives in Hawaii, has forgiven him and does not believe he should be punished.

That’s fine. But the justice system doesn’t exist solely for victims. Whether the victim forgives him doesn’t mean that he didn’t commit a crime against our society, and as a civilized society, we should see that he is punished for it. Giving him a pass condones his actions and says it’s OK for middle-aged men — or at least rich and famous ones — to drug and rape children. His actions, in no way, can be condoned.

In Hollywood, a petition is circulating seeking to have Polanski released immediately. Among Polanski’s advocates are producer Harvey Weinstein and actress Debra Winger. Directors Martin Scorsese and David Lynch have also signed.